Gone in the Dark
by K-yers
Summary: Beck Tozier has always been close with her loudmouthed twin brother, Richie. But something sinister is looming over Derry, threatening to rip apart the children living there, and Beck and her friends will have to face their fears to try and survive. Eventual Mike/OC
1. 1: June 1989

Rain was pouring down, flooding the streets surrounding the school and making little rivers on either side of the road. I rubbed at my glasses, cleaning them before pulling my hood over my head and stepping out into the rain to get my bike. The other kids from band were either running to their nearby houses or hurrying to their parents' parked cars nearby. I tightened my grip on the trumpet case and biked past the car line, knowing how far the house was and Mrs. Li had told the band that it was only going to rain more before nightfall.

It was Mom's fault that I was in band in the first place. She had thought that it would be good for me to have my own hobbie outside of hanging out with Richie. But Richie hadn't been forced to join the school band; he had been left alone to hang out with the others while I had to stay behind after school to badly play a trumpet. I rebelled by being really bad at the trumpet.

If I really thought hard about what Richie could be doing now, I could tell that whatever it was, he was annoyed. Some raindrops fell from the edge of my hood and onto my thick glasses, and I rubbed furiously at the glasses for a moment, trying to rid the fat droplets from the glass.

The thick glasses were too big for my head and ended up slipping off my face, clattering to the pavement below. "Aw, shit." I grumbled, breaking hard and sending waves of puddle water across the road.

The world had been blurry with my glasses thanks to the rain, but now everything was a blur of gray from the road and puddles and dark green from the trees on either side of the road. The water in the street made finding my glasses even harder, and I squinted against the raindrops trying to drip into my eyes and bent down to get closer to the puddle, trying to find where the damn glasses fell.

Leave it to me to lose my glasses riding home. As long as they hadn't fallen down the drain, I should be fine.

I finally found the blurred outline of glasses and grabbed them, sliding the sopping wet glasses onto my already cold and wet face. The moment the world came back into focus, I saw feet standing just outside of my reach. I stared at the feet, if I could even call them that.

They were bare and slimy with hard greenish gray scales morphing into doughy white flesh. I slowly looked up to see the webbed and clawed hands, the scales taking over the torso and arms and the face...

I screamed shrilly and leapt backwards, tripping over my own feet in the puddle and nearly losing my glasses again. "Fuck, shit, fuck, shit!" I screamed, scrambling to my bike as the fish man started to stumble after me. The bike nearly tipped over due to imbalance several times, but I managed to pedal away from the fish man. The fish man's fleshy feet slapped against the wet pavement and I heard it gurgling loudly, furiously. I pedaled faster as my heart pounded painfully against my chest.

When I got to the end of the street, I risked a glance over my shoulder to see the fish man, if he was still close behind me. But he wasn't there anymore.

Instead, there was a completely dry clown with bright orange hair, grinning hungrily at me. The clown raised its hand at me and waved, wiggling it's fingers one by one.

"Nope." I said, pedaling away faster. The rain beat down against my face like needles and my glasses got so wet and foggy that I could barely see, but I let them be. There was no way I was going to risk losing these fucking things again. By the time I made it back home, I was soaked to the bone, my legs were shaking, and I felt as blind as a bat in the daylight.

The living room was quiet when I got inside, shaking and covered with water and mud. I was slowly removing my trumpet, backpack, and raincoat from my back when-

"Boo!"

I screamed, my heart pounding so hard it actually hurt. Richie's laughter came from around the corner and I looked over to see him doubled over and pretending to wipe a tear from his eye.

"Oh shit, you screamed like a girl." Richie finally said after laughing for a longer time than necessary.

"I am a girl, you dickhead." I snapped, throwing the wet and muddy raincoat at his face. He wasn't able to dodge in time and got slapped in the face with the raincoat. I shakily took my glasses off and dried them against the dry shirt that had been protected by the raincoat. "Don't be fucking rude." I grumbled as more of an afterthought.

"Whatever." Richie said, hanging the dripping raincoat on the coat rack. "I could tell you were already scared. You have to do a solo or something? I've heard you play; it sounds like a goose getting fucking strangled."

I kicked my shoes off and set them beside the rest of the shoes that live beside the front door. I thought about the way the scales and flesh had met and the long face coated with green scales and bulging gray eyes set on the sides of its head…

The memory of the clown wiggly its fingers at me caused violent shudders to go down my spine and looked back to Richie. "I thought I saw something. On the way home. It was probably nothing."

Richie blinked, his eyes magnified thanks to his own pair of thick glasses. He knew I was lying. If he had known I was scared before, surely he had felt just how scared. I pushed past him and went into the kitchen, wanting to forget the fish man and clown.

Ever since we were little, Richie and I could tell what the other was feeling, if we tried hard enough. It was how I could tell he was annoyed and how he knew I had been scared. Once a couple of years ago, Richie had been beaten up by a group of older boys, and I had felt the ache of where Richie had been punched for days after it happened.

But Richie must've decided that it wasn't worth it to push the issue. He punched my arm roughly. "Hey, Bill wants to go to the Barrens tomorrow after school. He thinks he knows where Georgie ended up."

I stopped in the kitchen and blinked at Richie. "Okay, I don't have band. Is it a good idea to keep looking for Georgie? I mean, it's been like eight months."

"I know." Richie said, shifting his feet. "But try telling that to Bill. Stan thinks Bill will figure it out by eighth grade."

"What does Bill want to do in the Barrens?" I asked.

"Gee, I don't fucking know, Beck." Richie snarked, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "Bill's been looking for Georgie every weekend since...it happened. We're going to the Barrens to either see a dirty as fuck and smelly Georgie who's been living in the sewers this whole time, or a-"

Richie cut himself off, looking uncomfortable. Even with no one else here, he still doesn't want to picture Georgie being dead. I nodded, understanding. To distract him, I opened the fridge and grabbed a loose Coca Cola can and threw it at Richie. He let out a high pitched yelp but managed to catch it right in front of his face.

"Where's Mom?" I asked. Dad would still be at work, but Mom worked part time at Freese's and today wasn't her day to go in.

"She went to meet some of her PTA friends." Richie said, cracking the cola open and taking a long chug of it. "Probably going to get drunk as fuck and come home talking about headaches."

I reached up and pinched the bridge of my nose. In a lofty and tired voice, I drawled, "I can't cook dinner tonight. My head feels like it's splitting open."

Richie slumped against the kitchen counter, pretending to feel faint. "Everyone, _please_ stop talking so loudly!" Richie continued in the same lofty and tired voice. I chuckled at his impression; it was better than mine. This just encouraged him and Richie got even more dramatic, nearly tripping over himself and exclaiming about how his head hurt and how he needed more wine to make the headache go away.

This was how Richie and I best operated. Nothing couldn't be made fun of or laughed away, not a fish man or clown that may or may not have even been there, or Mom getting drunk with her friends and coming home to push everyone away.

Richie fell off the counter, knocking his half empty cola can and spilling the brown soda all over the kitchen floor. "Great job, dickhead." I said, reaching out to help Richie back to his feet. Richie let me help him up and helped me mop up the soda.

The rain that had been horrible yesterday was gone by the next morning. I left my trumpet home, it was the last day of school and no more band practice until school started back up again in September.

The teachers tried their damnedest to try and teach us something before summer, but it was a losing fight. I shared two classes with Eddie Kaspbrak, and we spent the entire time sitting in the back of the classroom flicking rubber bands at each other. At some point, Eddie accidentally sent one right into my face, the rubber band barely being blocked by my glasses.

"Oh shit!" Eddie exclaimed, his face going bright red. "You're okay, right? Your glasses stopped that, right?"

From a few seats away, Gretta Keane snickered loudly, two of her friends mimicking her. "What a loser." Gretta didn't even pretend to whisper.

I turned back to Eddie. "I'm fine, Eddie. Glasses took most of the hit."

"Slut!" Gretta pretended to cough loudly.

I spun in my desk back towards Gretta. "Learn some better insults, you wet sock. You can't call everyone losers and sluts; it gets boring. I'd say get creative, but it'd be a waste seeing as you only have one brain cell!"

Eddie chuckled into his hands while Gretta glared hard at me. The bell for the final class of the day rang shrilly and Eddie and I hurried out of the class to avoid her. Best to get away before Gretta could string together a proper insult that wasn't overused as hell.

"See you after school!" Eddie called out, heading into his final class that he shared with Richie and Bill Denbrough. I waved bye to him and went into the Pre Algebra classroom where I found Stanley Uris.

Out of the friends Richie and I had made over the years, Stanley was the one we'd known the longest. Richie and I had met him on the first day of kindergarten, and while Richie and I had tried to spend the whole day speaking in unison to scare the teacher, Stanley had sat at our table and watched us blankly before snorting quietly with laughter.

When the bell finally rang, everyone sprang up and rushing for the doors. I grabbed Stanley by the hand and pulled him through the hall, weaving around the other kids who were just too slow for us. By the time we caught up to the rest of our friends, they were discussing Stan's upcoming bar mitzvah.

"Hey guys," Stan said cheerfully and instantly the other three began raining down questions.

"Are they gonna slice a part of your dick off?" Eddie asked.

"What do they d-do anyway?" Bill asked.

"You don't have much of a dick anyway, Stan, how are they gonna cut _more_ off?" Richie bowled himself right into Bill's shoulder.

Stan rolled his eyes but replied, "At the bar mitzvah, I read from the Torah and suddenly I become a man."

"If it's that's easy, maybe the rest of you should consider doing it." I said.

Eddie pushed me gently at this, just enough to push me ahead of the group and not actually hurt me. But it was enough to get the attention of the group of high schoolers camping out in the hallway.

Henry Bowers and his friends were the meanest group of sixteen year olds in Derry. Every student younger than them were scared shitless and made it their mission to stay the hell away from Bowers and his gang of friends. But Richie, in one of his more dumbass moments, had really pissed Bowers and friends off when they accidentally slipped in some water and Richie loudly mocked them in front of a large group of people. And because Richie was on their radar, so was the rest of our friend group.

Bowers leaned against his locker, sneering at us as we passed. Belch and Vic, seemed to take one look at Richie and instantly began plotting something painful to do later. The one that scared me the most was Patrick Hockstetter. He had looked at me the moment Eddie had pushed me, and now his eyes were gleaming and he was looking at me in a way that made my skin crawl.

Bill reached out and pulled me back into the group as we hurried past them, trying to ignore the stares that they all were giving us. Richie glared right back at them over his shoulder and turned back to us. "Think they'll sign my yearbook?"

We managed to make it outside without attracting any more attention from anymore older kids and Bill led the charge with dumping the binders and notebooks into the trash cans outside. Eddie put his backpack back on, straightening up now that the weight of his books wasn't there anymore.

"So what do you want to do tomorrow?" Eddie asked.

"Training," Richie replied. When Eddie looked confused, Richie explained. "You know, for street fighter."

"That's how you're going to spend your summer? In the arcade?"

"Beats spending it inside your mother." Richie went for a high five from Stan, but Stanley just grabbed Richie's hand and put it back down.

When I had looked over to Stan and Richie's interaction, I spotted two police cars sitting outside of the school. Two cops stood together, leaning against one of the cars and looking bored. The woman standing in front of them was someone I recognized and instantly felt pity for.

Betty Ripsom had been a girl in a couple of my classes, as well as the school band. We hadn't been friends, but we had partnered up on a few assignments and whenever Gretta had been a bitch, Betty and I had gleefully made fun of her. We had never spoken during band practice: I played trumpet and she had played clarinet, but we had always been nice to each other there too.

Now Betty's mom was waiting outside the school, just in case her daughter came out and was alive and well. Betty had been missing for three weeks now, and from what people were saying around town, no one was really expecting to find her alive.

"You think they'll actually find her?" Stan asked, and I jumped slightly, realizing that the boys had followed my gaze and saw Betty's mom too.

Richie scoffed. "Yeah. Covered in maggots and decomposed and shit."

I rounded on my twin. "Shut up, that isn't funny."

"She's not duh-dead." Bill said as firmly as he could. Richie blinked and nodded, looking genuinely sorry for a moment. Bill nodded once and started to walk in the direction of the Barrens, to see if we could all find Georgie.

"The Barrens aren't that bad," Richie said, falling into step beside me. "I always wanted to spend my summer walking around in shitty water."

There was a hard yank on my backpack and I was flung backwards along with Richie. Henry Bowers had just come up and pulled us back so hard we knocked Stan to the ground. I heard a loud burp coming from Belch and scrambled to my feet. Belch and Vic were with Bowers harassing Bill and Eddie, but where was-

"Nice frisbee, flamer." Patrick Hockstetter sneered at Stan. Stanley's yarmulke had fallen off and Hockstetter had grabbed it and thrown it before anyone could react. Hockstetter turned his creepy gaze onto me and I backed up several paces. Hockstetter laughed cruelly and walked away. I waited until he was far enough away before rushing back to Richie and Stanley and helping the two of them up.

"You suh-suh-_suck_, Bowers!" Bill shouted at the bullies. I nearly let go of Richie helping him back to his feet.

"You say something, b-b-b-Billy?" Bowers did a shitty imitation of Bill's stutter, and for a moment I wished I was brave enough to punch Bowers in the face. Bowers got painfully close to Bill but stopped himself from hitting him. Instead the older boy licked his palm and smeared it down Bill's face. With that, the older boys left, leaving us just brewing with hate after them.

"Wish he'd go missing." Richie said, and no one disagreed.


	2. 2: Hanscom and Marsh

We agreed to go to the Barrens in a couple of hours. Stan had to practice his bar mitzvah speech with his dad at the synagogue, and Bill had to check in with his parents after school every day ever since Georgie disappeared. Mrs. Denbrough had once been very cheerful and bright woman to see on weekends whenever we all hung out at Bill's house. But now she was tearful and sad and wanted to know where Bill was hanging out at all times. It made sense, but it just served as a reminder to Bill that Georgie was gone.

While they were busy, I went with Eddie and Richie to Eddie's house to get supplies for our trip to the Barrens. And by supplies, I meant Eddie's supply of pills and some snacks just in case we were down there for the rest of the day.

From the outside, the Kaspbrak house looked like every other house on the block. The bushes below the porch were neatly trimmed and the grass was always short, due to an older boy in high school having a monopoly on taking care of people's yards in this neighborhood. The tree in the front yard had an ancient tire swing that I could not remember ever seeing Eddie himself playing on it. Eddie had once explained that the dad from the house's previous owner had put it up, and Eddie's mom had forbidden him from ever getting on it. The only times that tire swing was ever touched was whenever Richie charged head first into it and swung around for a minute or two before hopping off and continuing whatever he was doing before.

The inside of the Kaspbrak house was a completely different story. It was always dark inside and was rather cluttered. Despite the sheer amount of things sitting around the house, everything was unbelievably clean. Eddie was allergic to nearly everything and if you listened to him talk about his allergies, you would think that he was five seconds away from dying of an allergic reaction or sickness at all times.

Mrs. Kaspbrak was sitting in her usual chair in front of the TV when we entered the house. And she looked up when we entered, looking happy to see Eddie but narrowing her eyes at me and Richie.

Eddie had tried to be nice about it, but the truth was that Mrs. Kaspbrak tolerated Richie and _hated _me. Whenever I appeared at her house, she spent the entire time glaring at me and doing her hardest to keep me and Eddie from standing too close to each other.

"She doesn't want me to like any girls yet." Eddie once explained to me. "I'm too young apparently."

"I think she just never wants you to have a girlfriend or leave her ever." I retorted. Eddie had opened his mouth to comment but had quickly shut his mouth, not able to disagree. Mrs. Kaspbrak didn't have anything to worry about from me though; Eddie and I didn't think about each other that way at all.

Eddie led the way into the kitchen after greeting his mom. Richie immediately started rummaging through cabinets randomly. I looked over to Eddie as he started to refill some of the pill canisters in his fanny pack.

"What kind of snacks did you have?" I asked. "Bill's going to wanna stay at the Barrens for a few hours at least."

Eddie pointed to the cabinet across from Richie and I went over to it and began to sort through some of the food available. There was a lot of gluten free bars, vegetable chips that looked like dry chips of carrots and peppers, a weird brown bar of that was somehow free of all nuts, dairy, eggs, and soy. I didn't know what that left over.

"Eddie, all your shit is weird health stuff." I said, holding the box of brown bars. Eddie glanced at me and narrowed his eyes.

"Do you want me to die, Beck?" Eddie asked dryly.

"I don't want _me_ to die by eating this." I replied. "What the hell is even in here? Every other normal ingredient is marked out."

Richie had gotten into the pill cabinet where all of Eddie's extra pills were stored. "Eddie, these your birth control pills?"

"Yeah, I'm saving them for your sister." Eddie snapped without pause. He nearly snapped his own neck spinning around to face me. "Sorry Beck; wasn't thinking."

"Clearly." I said, ignoring the sudden stab of jealousy that had jumped out of nowhere and pierced my gut. I shot a glance at Richie who had closed the cabinet and dropped the subject, not looking at either of us. That stab of jealousy hadn't been mine.

It took Eddie just a few more minutes to sort his afternoon pills and put them in the fanny pack. Despite my pestering about the weird snacks, Eddie packed enough in the fanny pack for the rest of the afternoon and we started to head for the front door.

"Eddie Bear!" Mrs. Kaspbrak called from her chair. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Over to Richie and Beck's house." Eddie lied with ease. Our neighborhood was far enough away that she couldn't swing by and check. "They got a new croquet set that we're going to try."

Richie and I exchanged a look but nodded anyway. Who the fuck buys croquet sets for their house? I had no idea if Mrs. Kasprak bought the lie or not. She just gave Eddie a warning not to play on freshly cut grass (because his allergies would act up and he'd die) and had her son come over and kiss her cheek. Richie snickered at the sight and couldn't resist saying, "Do you want one from me too, Mrs. K?"

With Eddie's pills and weird snacks in fanny pack, we biked our way to Bill's house to grab him before going to the synagogue to meet Stan. The moment Stanley hurried outside to his bike, I could tell there was instantly something different about him.

"Are you okay, Stan?" I asked.

Stan flinched but nodded feverishly. "I'm fine, really. Let's just go." Without another word, he pedaled away, leaving the rest of us to hurry after him.

The bike path to the Barrens was kind of pretty. The trees were green with summer leaves and it left a sort of golden light on the forest floor. The river below the path gurgled below us as we weaved around the steep trail way, going wherever Bill led us. He had to have some idea where we were going; this was his idea anyway.

The Barrens were warm and bright this time of year. After parking the bikes, Bill led the way down the hill and towards the water, his brow furrowed as his eyes scanned the water moving lazily to the south. As we headed down the hill, Richie and I exchanged a glance, remembering the conversation from yesterday. What would we even do if we found Georgie, regardless of whether or not he was dead?

Bill led the way to the mouth of a sewer drain, the entrance being just tall enough for an adult to walk inside with ease. I walked past Bill and stopped at the entrance, peering inside the darkness. Standing right here, I could smell piss and shit and still water and dead leaves. The reek coming from the sewer made me think of the fish man from yesterday, how his doughy flesh had blended grossly with the green scales-

"Saved ya!" Richie screamed. Richie suddenly grabbed my arms, pushing me forward and then yanking me roughly back. I shrieked as my glasses immediately flew off my face and into the sewer, disappearing from sight and clattering somewhere into the darkness.

"Rich!" I snapped, spinning around blindly and slapping at any part of him as I could reach. Richie leapt out of the way and hid behind Eddie, using Eddie as a human shield. I locked my eyes on the blur that was Richie and glared. "Fuck you, Richie."

Richie gasped loudly right in Eddie's ear, making him flinch. "Rebecca Louise Tozier! Don't use that kind of fucking language!"

Bill ignored the whole interaction and walked confidently into the sewers, reappearing after a moment to hand me my glasses back. By the time I cleaned and put them back on my face, Bill had already gone back into the sewers, Richie at his heels.

Stan joined me at the mouth of the sewer. He pointed to my glasses. "How have those not broken yet?"

I shrugged. "I think I've dropped them at least four times."

Stan, who had known me to wear glasses since I was five and had watched nearly every day as they fell and clattered and remained in tact, rolled his eyes upwards and bit back a sigh. I snickered at his reaction and started to step into the sewer.

Bill and Richie had stopped right before the water took over, and they were staring at the gray water with matched looks of nervousness. I stood at Bill's shoulder, tempted to try the same pushing prank on Richie. But if Richie fell, he'd be falling into shitty water. If I had fallen, I just would have gotten a scrape or two that would've been easy to take care of and would've caused Eddie to go into a panic about infections from getting scrapes into filthy sewers.

Speaking of Eddie, he and Stan were still standing outside, looking hesitant and scared to come closer. When Bill began walking, straight into the gray water, Eddie gagged and ducked away, trying to keep from throwing up.

"C'mon guys." I said, forcing cheerfulness into my voice. "It's not that bad."

"Bullshit." Stan said dryly. Eddie reappeared, his face vaguely tinted green.

"I can't go in there." Eddie declared. "Do you know how many germs are in there? You guys could get sick from just standing there!"

Bill was too far to respond. "Georgie might be in here somewhere, Eddie." I said evenly. Despite whatever doubts Richie and I shared at home, we wanted Georgie to be alive. It would be a miracle, and Bill would be his old self again. He stuttered more ever since Georgie had gone missing.

Eddie and Stan exchanged a look, and I wondered if they had had the same conversation Richie and I had last night. Stan looked back to where Bill was scanning the gray water with a flashlight. "Don't you think Georgie would have left the sewers if he was in here?" He asked. Bill ignored him and continued trying to see through the shit water.

Eddie shuffled, "We can't go farther! Bill?"

"Calm down, Eds." Richie said brightly. And he jumped into the gray water. It only went up to his knees and Richie looked like he wanted to puke the moment he entered the water. The splash nearly hit me if I hadn't rushed backwards, hitting my back against the wall. Eddie made a much louder gagging noise and it sounded like he was actually about to throw up. Richie slowly turned to Eddie and Stan, "The water's great!"

The sound of water splashing hadn't been anything new over the past few minutes; Bill had been walking around and splashing and now Richie had upset the slime and caked on shit. But the new water splashing was coming from outside, and Stan and Eddie were able to see what happened before us.

"Bill!" I called right as Eddie and Stan ran from the sewer to where the noise had come from. "Something's happening!" I looked at Richie and set my mouth to a thin line.

"That wasn't worth it." Richie read my mind and got out of the water, his skin looking green beneath his freckles. He left the sewer and exclaimed, "Holy fuck! What happened to you?"

I waited for Bill to catch up before walking with him outside. The water clung to his blue jeans and I saw streaks of what looked like loogies running down the length of his legs. I wrinkled my nose at the sight but didn't point it out to Bill; his jaw was clenched and he looked like he was trying not to think about Georgie being trapped somewhere deeper in these sewers.

The sunlight nearly blinded me when we left the sewer, and a kid I didn't recognize was sitting in the river, tears streaming down his face. He was covered head to toe in dirt and dust and small scrapes, and there was a very big red patch of blood on his belly. Bill and I looked at each other quick before rushing after the others to help him.

After a lot of panicked sniffling and hiccups, the kid was able to tell us that Henry Bowers and his friends had dragged him to the Kissing Bridge and beaten him up. Patrick Hockstetter had used hairspray and a lighter to throw flames at his head. And then Bowers had used a pocket knife to carve the letter _H_ into his stomach with the intent of carving his whole name.

We quickly grabbed Ben Hanscom and took him back to the bikes. He sat on the back of Bill's bike, and we quickly began pedaling back into town, our mission in the Barrens forgotten for the time being.

The hospital was a full hour drive from Derry. We would never have made it on bikes. The clinic was the closest thing to a hospital in town, but it would be a very long ride and Ben said that he didn't want his parents to know about Bowers. For a moment, there was a pause in which no one knew where to go before I pedaled forward and began to lead the pack towards the pharmacy downtown. The moment they realized where I was leading them, Stan began to think out loud about how much money he had to buy things.

"How could we have forgotten first aid?" Eddie asked in a terrified sounding voice.

"How could you have not thought about us finding a fucker half dead in the water?" Richie asked before quickly looking over his shoulder at Bill and Ben. I couldn't tell which one he was silently regretting saying that to.

We parked the bikes in the alley beside the pharmacy, leaving Bill and Richie outside to sit and make sure Ben didn't die. Stan, Eddie, and I went inside and wasted no time rushing and tripping over each other to get to the first aid aisle.

Eddie snatched a bag of cotton balls and Stan used an empty patch of shelf to count out what money he had. I hurried and grabbed a bottle of water and when I came back, Eddie handed me the cotton balls and box of gauze squares.

"Could you get some disinfectant." I asked. Eddie grabbed the large brown bottle and placed it on the pile of gauze squares and cotton balls. I crept to Stan and peered over his shoulder to the few bills and coins he had.

Stan gathered the money back into his fist. "We've only got like four dollars."

"Seriously?" Eddie hissed.

"That's not even enough for any of this stuff." I pointed out.

"What's all of that even for?" Stan asked, taking in everything.

"We gotta clean the damn thing before putting a bandage on it." I replied. Eddie coughed violently and I turned to make sure he wasn't actually dying when I caught sight of why Eddie had coughed.

Beverly Marsh stood awkwardly at the end of the aisle, staring at us with a vague sort of alarm. She held her hand behind her back and nodded at the medical supplies in my arms. "What happened?"

"We found a kid who looks dead." Eddie deadpanned. "Don't have enough money."

Beverly glanced over to the pharmacist desk, narrowing her eyes at Mr. Keane wandering around back there. "Wait 'til it's clear." And without another word, Beverly marched right up to the counter and rang the bell.

Stan grabbed me and Eddie and we hid behind the aisle, peeking around the corner to where Beverly spoke to Mr. Keane. We couldn't hear what was said, but he handed her his glasses and she put them on. One second later, Beverly went to hand the glasses back and she shoved the wire rack right to the ground behind the desk. Mr. Keane bent to pick it all up, and Beverly looked over her shoulder at us and jerked her head.

"Go, go, go, go!" Eddie hissed, leading the charge to get outside. Stan and I stumbled after him, running out of the pharmacy as fast as we could before Mr. Keane stood back up.

"Did you guys suh-ssh-steal that?" Bill asked incredulously.

"It was either that or let Ben die." I explained. I sat in front of Ben, going cross legged. "Can you lift your shirt, please?"

Ben glanced quickly to everyone else in the group, wide eyed. Richie playfully punched his arm. "Don't worry 'bout it. She's been putting band aids on us since before Eddie knew what diseases were."

Eddie ignored him and looked over my shoulder. He was interested, but too nervous to touch the dirt clodded and dark red_ H_ on Ben's belly. Stan explained how we were able to steal the stuff and the moment Beverly Marsh's name was said, the three boys who hadn't been inside looked up with interest.

Rumors had flown around Beverly Marsh for as long as I could remember. In third grade, it was that she'd kiss any boy on the lips if they gave her a dime. In fifth grade, it was that she let an eighth grader put his tongue in her mouth. Now, it was that she let Henry Bowers feel her up for the entire year. Some said they had had sex, but no one was sure about that. Bowers had said nothing about the rumors, but he always smirked meanly whenever someone gathered the courage to ask him. Beverly had remained silent about every rumor, just adding fuel to the fire. Even if none of it had been true and it was all just a load of horse shit, Beverly Marsh had been marked as a slut by everyone under the age of sixteen, and she isolated herself enough for people to feel that everything was true.

The conversation the boys were having was interrupted by footsteps entering the alley. I looked up from the bright white patch of gauze on Ben's stomach to see Beverly Marsh standing awkwardly at the edge of the group, her plastic shopping bag in hand and a nervous looking smile on her face.

Before anyone could think of a proper greeting, Bill sputtered out, "We were thinking of going to the quarry to-tomorrow. Duh-Do you wanna come?"

Beverly blinked but smiled in a genuine way, her cheekbones pushing her eyes into a faint squint. "Yeah. That sounds like it could be fun. See you then." She hurried off then, as if afraid that Bill would take back the invitation.

"So we're going to the quarry tomorrow?" Stan asked dryly, raising an eyebrow at Bill. Bill didn't answer and pretended to be super interested in Ben's patched up stomach injury.


	3. 3: The Quarry

The quarry was just outside of Derry, a crater in the ground that people seemed to have forgotten about. Well, the adults of Derry never really came out here. There had been some kind of construction years ago, but it had been halted and none of the construction crew ever came back. The northern edge of the quarry has the flattened and rocky area with some abandoned tractors and equipment, nothing really dangerous. If you sat in the driver's seat of the tractor, you could look out over the quarry, from its steep drop just a little ways away, to the makeshift beach on the other side of the man made lake.

The water that made of the bottom of the crater was always freezing cold and bright green. On blistering hot days, some kids would go to the easy sloped beach and wade around in the shallows. More daring kids would go to the northern edge where the tractors were and take flying leaps into the deepest part of the lake. But the kids who came to the quarry were all outcasts in one way or another. The kids with above ground pools didn't have a reason, and probably didn't see the appeal of hanging around an abandoned construction site and jumping into freezing water.

We all met at the construction site around nine the next morning, everyone meeting up by the overlooking tractor instead of going house to house to get everyone. By the time Richie and I got there, Ben Hanscom was already there with Stan and Bill.

"What up, fuckwads?" Richie asked the moment we were within earshot of the others.

"Nice to see you too," Ben said, not deterred at all by Richie. He turned back to Bill and Stan. "So it's like they have to kill Dracula and the other monsters by throwing them into limbo."

"Wha-What about fuh-fuh-Frankenstein though?" Bill asked.

"Frankenstein's monster." Stan corrected.

Richie turned to me, frowning. "You have any idea what these losers are talking about?"

Ben eagerly replied. "It's a movie my family got on video last year. It's about-"

"I don't care." Richie muttered, walking off to collect rocks. Ben's voice trailed off when he realized Richie wasn't listening, but he brightened considerably when Bill and Stan urged him to tell them more about the movie. I followed Richie as he gathered rocks, using his shirt as a basket for the rocks and exposing his stomach.

"What's got you in a bad mood?" I asked bluntly.

Richie didn't answer at first and his jaw was clenched. "I'm fine, Beck."

I frowned and snatched up the rock he was reaching to get. "No you're not."

"See, when I know you're lying about being fine, I leave you the fuck alone." Richie said with a snap. "Give me my rock." I tossed the rock to him, landing it right in the small pile he had gathered in his shirt.

"If I guess it, will you tell me?" I asked, poking Richie hard in the arm as he tried to walk away. He rolled his magnified eyes but nodded anyway. I pointed back to where Ben was sitting with Bill and Stan. "Is it about Ben?"

"No."

"Is it about Beverly Marsh coming?" I pushed. When Richie didn't answer within the first two seconds, I pushed on. "What are you worried about Beverly Marsh for? No one knows if those rumors are true."

"It's not her either." Richie snapped. "You're never gonna guess."

I took off my glasses for a moment and cleaned them. "Is about how Eddie's not here yet? His mom is probably just interrogating him for where he'll be. Eddie's a good liar, he'll figure something out." Richie shook his head and I threw my hands up in the air. "Then what the fuck is wrong with you?"

Richie looked at me and blinked. "You can cheat if you want. I give you permission."

Going into seventh grade, Richie and I had agreed to try and sense each other's emotions less. Sometimes it just happened like yesterday in Eddie's kitchen, other times it was something so quick and easy it was just happened usually without either of us thinking. Our agreement had been narrowed down to: _We promise not to use our mutant powers to figure something out if someone is upset._

There were a few other rules like this. They all boiled down to, if the other wants to be left alone, you could not use the mutant power to figure out what was bothering them. The full list of rules had been written in Sharpie the week before seventh grade and it was currently tacked unceremoniously on our bedroom wall between a Queen poster and a bunch of badly drawn comic book characters.

With Richie's permission, I focused in on him, trying to figure out what had him acting snappy. The moment I tried, I was hit by a tidal wave of anxiousness and leftover fear, the kind of fear that you knew irrational but terrified you anyway. I took a step back and shook myself of Richie's emotional state. He pursed his lips and walked past me to the edge of the cliff. "Told ya you wouldn't guess what it was."

I stood beside him at the edge of the cliff, reaching over and stealing one of his rocks. "Where did that even come from?"

Richie dumped the rocks on the ground and plucked a fat one. He threw it as far as he could, making a grunt as he did. "Had a bad dream last night. Felt too real, you know."

"What was it about? 'Cause it made you act like even more of an ass than usual."

Richie snorted and threw another rock. "There was a clown, following me around some gross looking house."

I stopped and stared, thinking to the clown I had seen with the fish man. "What'd the clown look like?"

"I never fucking saw it." Richie explained. "Every time I turned around, it was gone. It's like it was peeking at me from around corners and laughing." Richie shuddered and threw another rock. "Don't tell me the others. Don't want them to think I'm a pussy." He looked at me and stuck out his pinkie finger towards me.

I highly doubted that the others would think that about Richie of all people. But I wrapped my pinkie finger around his and we shook hands that way, making the sacred deal that we had started when we were around six years old. If we broke a pinkie swear, the other got to break the offender's pinkie. Not that we actually would; it was a funny punishment to think of when we were six.

Richie and I finished throwing his rocks before going back to the others. Eddie had shown up, the fanny pack stuffed with medication for the day. Richie didn't hesitate to start aggressively badgering Eddie about his pills and mother and while they bickered, I was the one who noticed Beverly Marsh making it.

I waved at her, giving her a smile that I hoped was convincing in friendliness. Beverly returned the wave and joined me at the edge of the group, watching the boys be enthralled in the loud argument between Richie and Eddie.

"What're they fighting about?" Beverly asked me in a quiet voice.

I shrugged. "No clue. This happens every day, so it's nothing serious. I think Richie told him he fucked Eddie's mom and Eddie is freaking out."

Beverly chuckled into her hand and I realized that her hair was cut short like a boys. I pointed to the halo of bright red hair. "I like you hair. I wish my mom would let me cut mine. But she thinks I'd look too much like Richie then." I imitated Mom's voice and said, "Now, Rebecca, you already look like your brother; if you cut your hair there won't be any difference between you two.'"

Beverly was still chuckling. "Hence the hair."

My hair could best be described as a mane. Dad had once said that Tozier hair grew thick, and it heat it tended to poof out in volume. So whenever it was hot, I looked like a lion, something Gretta and every one of her friends never failed to remind me. Richie used to make fun of me about it, but he stopped when he figured that I was getting enough of it from the assholes at school.

I nodded at Beverly. "Mom lives in constant fear that I will look exactly like Richie. She always wanted a really girly girl, and she got a boy and a girl who hates the girly things that she likes."

Beverly smiled and she pulled a brown scrunchie from her wrist and handed it to me. "Here you go. I don't need it anymore."

"Oh thanks." I said, genuinely meaning it. As I tamed my hair to tie it back, Beverly looked to the edge of the cliff.

"You want to go in?" Beverly asked. "They're still fighting." She was right; now all the boys were arguing about something, and I caught the word loogie several times. I looked back to Beverly and nodded, wondering what she had in mind.

The answer to that was Beverly quickly removed her dress and stood in her underwear and bra, waiting patiently for me to hurry out of my shorts and oversized Queen shirt that Dad had given me with the promise that I'd grow into it. Goosebumps spread across my skin the moment the summer breeze hit me, but I ignored it and went to the edge of the cliff.

Beverly looked down and said in a matter of fact way, "We should get a running start."

"You wanna jump together?" I asked. Beverly looked back down at the water, looking slightly nervous now. She nodded and we backed up several paces, readying ourselves to charge and leap over the edge. I took off my glasses and held them firmly.

Despite coming here for years and years, I had never jumped into the lake before. None of my friends had. Beverly must have; she knew that this area was the deepest and this had been her idea. We stared at the edge for a minute before Beverly and I silently grabbed hands and squeezed.

"What the-?"

I barely heard Eddie's confusion as the boys finally stopped bickering and looked over to see what I had been doing. Beverly and I charged towards the blurry cliff's edge, the rocks below our bare feet sending sharp blips of pain for a brief moment until we reached the edge and leapt, our hands still squeezing hard onto each other.

There was a sickening moment in which I felt myself drop, like a weight had been added to my ankles and I was plummeting fast. The only thing I could feel was Beverly's hand, the glasses in the other hand, and the wind ripping past me. The icy green water welcomed us and for a moment, the air from my lungs evaporated as the shock of hitting the water and the coldness hit me. Beverly let go of my hand and we swam to the surface.

I gasped, my hair plastered to the sides of my face. I slid the wet glasses back on my face and Beverly faced me, giggling like mad. "That was awesome!" She exclaimed, breathlessly.

"You've never done that?" I asked, my voice sounding just as breathless as hers. Beverly shook her head and instead of feeling upset, I smiled and started laughing too. When I looked up to the cliff we had jumped from, it seemed so much taller than it had previously been. Five heads bobbed around the cliff's edge, and I could barely hear the boys yelling.

"Come on!" Beverly called up to them, swimming out of the way.

"Don't be chickenshit!" I yelled at them, following her lead and getting out of the way for when they did jump.

There was a long moment before Richie jumped. My twin screamed his head off as he fell and he made a decent sized splash when he jumped. When he joined us to the side, Richie glared at me and sputtered out, "You're lucky I'm not telling Mom you did that. Nearly giving me a fucking heart attack." He had taken his glasses off for the jump and now he roughly jammed them back on his face.

Ben came down next, surprising me. After Ben came Bill, and then after several minutes of waiting, Stan and Eddie jumped down together. Once everyone was gathered, we had a race to the shallow part, where we could hang out without treading so much water.

Despite the cold water, the day was extremely pleasant. The bright sun would warm us enough so that it was a balance of being freezing from the water to being warm from the sun. We had chicken fights, Beverly and Ben on a team and Richie and Bill on the other. When Richie and Bill, they had to go against me and Eddie. Stan was the judge and laughed when Richie and I started slapping each other. Eddie kicked at Bill's legs and caused the pair of them of them to collapse.

"We are the champions!" Eddie screeched, tossing me off his shoulders and into the water. "No one can defeat Kaspbrak and Tozier!"

The stab of jealousy that wasn't mine came again, and I pushed it away.

At some point, a turtle kept brushing against our legs, and Stan began a mission to try and find it. Soon after, Richie lost his glasses and we all helped look for them, using it as an excuse to see who could dive deeper and stay underwater longer. Stan ended up being able to hold his breath the longest but Eddie found the glasses. We swam for close to an hour, only got out of the water when Beverly's lips turned blue from the cold, and we hiked up the hill to where our clothes were staying.

Richie had brought along his portable radio, and after he and Eddie fought over the signal, we ended up with scratchy rock music playing at the abandoned construction site. Beverly was the only one who had brought a towel, which she used to dry herself off and spread it out to sit on.

I sat on the rock beside Beverly's towel. "Give my hair a few minutes and it'll poof out again."

Beverly smiled. "Please tell me Richie's hair does the same."

"It does! Makes him look like he has a black cotton ball on his head."

Richie narrowed his eyes over from the radio. "Stop talking shit. Your hair makes you look like a drowned rat right now."

Beverly and Ben, the two newcomers to the group, both stiffened and glanced around the rest of the group. But those who were used to everything ignored the fresh insult. When nothing came from the insult, Beverly visibly relaxed and leaned down on her towel, looking fairly relaxed.

Talking to Beverly was pretty easy. She hated Gretta Keane too and we compared different ways Gretta was a bitch. When Beverly told me about how Gretta and her friends Veronica Sinclair and Karen Grace had filled the bathroom trash can full of water and dumped in on her in one of the stalls, I blinked and immediately felt bad for complaining about how Gretta just called me names.

"That's awful." I said, realizing how little that sounded. "I mean, the worst thing Gretta ever did to me was say me and Richie were 'into each other.'"

"I think she called it twincest." Richie piped up from the radio, trying to get the signal better. Ben pretended to gag while the other three, who had heard this story the day it happened.

"I think that's still gross." Beverly said, hiding her mouth with her hands.

"It is." I agreed. "I still think getting actual trash water dumped on you is worse though. It scares me to think of what is in those trash cans in the bathroom."

There was a slight rustling and I looked over to see Richie was raiding through Ben's backpack. "Didn't anyone tell you?" Richie asked in an old timer announcer voice. "School's out for summer!"

"This isn't for school." Ben protested, snatching a postcard away from Richie. I got up and peered inside the backpack.

"What is all of that, Ben?" I asked. Beverly, intrigued, came over and sat down right next to Bill. I didn't fail to notice that Bill's face immediately turned bright pink.

Ben shrugged, "My family move around a lot, so wherever we go, I like to do some reading on where we live. Derry's not like any other town I've been to. People go missing or die, twice the national average. Except kids; kids are worse."

"Where the hell did you find that kind of information?" I muttered, squeezing myself between Richie and Stan to look at the folder full of newspaper articles.

"Lots of old newspapers." Ben replied. Stan and I exchanged a glance as Richie handed over the folder. Stan held it and fingered through some of the papers, pausing enough to let me read over his shoulder. Ben looked around the group, where everyone was pouring over the articles on how Derry was a fucked up place.

"I have more at my house," Ben offered, and the rest of the day was set.


	4. 4: Nightmares

Ben led the parade of bikes to where he lived. His neighborhood was pretty close to the Barrens, and I recognized a few kids from school that lived in this neighborhood. We parked the bikes in the patchy brownish-green front yard and followed Ben inside. He briefly explained that his mom was at work before rushing to his bedroom. I exchanged a glance with Stan before hurrying after him. I entered the room just in time to see Ben throwing some dirty clothes into his closet and hurrying to door closed. Ben turned and locked eyes with me and I giggled gently, silently promising Ben that I wouldn't say anything about his rush to clean his room.

The rest of the group filed into the room and I finally took in the sights of Ben's room. He had tacked several newspapers and missing posters and papers that looked like pages torn out of many different books.

"Stan," I said, pointing to long newspaper article as the rest of the group spread out to look at the walls. "Look at this." Stan followed me to the corner where a very long article about a murder that was witnessed about fifty years ago. Stan peered closer to actually read the fine print and I turned to Ben and gestured towards it. "Are all these just weird murders?"

Ben shook his head. "Murders, disappearances, bad events that happen, kinda randomly."

"Jesus!" Richie exclaimed from nearby. He and Eddie were staring up at more mysterious murders with Eddie on his tiptoes to read the fine print of the papers. "We can get Derry on Unsolved Mysteries."

Eddie got a big grin on his face. "You're brilliant! Let's do that."

Beverly was looking at something on the other side of the door, and Bill was staring at the missing posters. I walked over to him and looked over them quickly, feeling incredibly relieved when I didn't see Georgie's face up there. I didn't know what we'd do if Georgie's missing poster was sitting in Ben's bedroom. Ben was still telling anyone who would listen the history of Derry.

Stan and I ended up joining the discussion right as Ben said, "The only clue they had for where everyone went was a trail of bloody clothes going to the well house."

"Where was the well house?" Stan asked, glancing up to the black and white drawing of a well. I peered at it too; in the drawing a lady was pulling a bucket up from the depths.

Ben shrugged at Stan's question. "I don't know. Somewhere in town, I guess. It's something that happens in old towns; new buildings get built on top of old ones to put more stuff in city limits."

Stan looked down to me. "There's already nothing in Derry; I wonder what building is on top of the well now."

"Maybe the school." I suggested. "That way if we find it, we can push Bowers and Gretta down it."

Not long after that, we all headed out to go home. As Richie and I biked back to the house, he spoke in his Toodles the English Butler voice. "Derry's a right weird place, miss Toz-zah!"

"Do you have to be Toodles right now?" I asked dryly as we approached the house.

"If I don't practice, I won't get good." Richie replied in his normal voice. "Just listen to my Jabba again. It's getting better."

"Your Jabba has sounded the same for five years!" I protested just for Richie to throw his head back in a much better imitation of a tauntaun.

"Please go back to Toodles." I begged as we put the bikes away. Richie, understanding that his tauntaun screaming was annoying, proceeded to do it louder, causing some neighborhood dogs to start barking.

He was still doing the dying tauntaun when we got inside the house, and immediately from the kitchen we hear, "Richard Tozier, cut it out!"

Mom and Dad were both home, and it didn't take long to find Dad sitting on his la-z boy with his feet up and the evening newspaper already blocking his face. He glanced over it as we approached. "You two look like you had a nice day. How is everyone? Mr. Uris told me that Stanley's bar mitzvah is coming up."

"Stan's good." Richie replied. "We got two new friends today; be proud of us."

"Considering you haven't made any new friends since Eddie, I will be proud of you." Dad replied dryly. "Two in one day? You aren't set to make any new friends until you turn twenty now."

"Sweet!" I cheered, slapping Richie's outstretched high five as hard as I could.

Mom entered the living room, her hair still teased and feathered like how they did it a few years ago when. She hadn't worked today, so she had probably been with her friends for most of the day. Her part time job had her working only a few times a week, and she spent the rest of her time doing PTA things, book club, whatever else moms do. She took in her loudmouthed children, looking fairly amused but then her eyes narrowed on me.

"Rebecca?" She started and I immediately knew what she was going to ask. "Did you practice trumpet at all today?"

She read the answer on my face and sighed heavily. But before she could go into a lecture on why I needed to practice trumpet at least two hours a day, Richie cut in with his impression of Mom to do the lecture for her. "Now Rebecca, you know how important it is for you to practice the trumpet. Otherwise how will you get a scholarship for college?" Richie grabbed my shoulders and shook me gently. "Practice the trumpet or die in Derry, Rebecca!"

Dad chuckled behind his newspaper; he enjoyed the impression of his wife more than he would care to admit. Mom tried to frown at Richie, but she smirked in amusement and shook her head. If I didn't practice trumpet tomorrow though, she wouldn't let Richie get away with giving me the lecture this time. When Mom went back into the kitchen to finish cooking dinner, Richie and I locked eyes and he flashed me a big grin.

The house wasn't a bad one, far from it. Whenever we looked at our friends and their parents, Richie and I kept quiet as the others spoke of their home lives. Bill parent's ignored him a lot ever since Georgie disappeared. Stan was never able to be loud because his parents were incredibly strict and whenever he was with them, he got even quieter than normal. Eddie's mom was...Eddie's mom. Eddie once said that he didn't really remember his dad; Mr. Kaspbrak had died of cancer when Eddie was five. And Ben and Beverly had only just joined the group, but Ben had mentioned only his mom and everyone kind of knew about Beverly through the sheer amount of rumors flying around. All that we knew for sure was that Mrs. Marsh was dead and Al Marsh was scary to everyone.

Compared to everyone else, Richie and I had two pretty good parents. Mom drank a lot and didn't seem to understand us, but she made a point of watching the movies we liked so that she could understand the references Richie often threw out. One time earlier this year she had stayed up with Richie to help him with his pre algebra. Another time I had practiced trumpet in front of her and she had kindly applauded when I was done badly playing.

Richie and I were lucky to have parents who tried.

It started to rain sometime during dinner and afterwards I swiped a video from the shelf in the hallway to watch. When I got back to my shared room with Richie, he snatched the VHS from my hand.

"Nightmare on Elm Street?" Richie asked. "Why the hell did Mom let this in the house?"

"I think she might not know it's there." I said, removing my glasses to clean them. "It was hidden behind a bunch of Disney movies. The perfect place for Dad to hide it; Mom hates cartoons."

The room that Richie and I shared had been ours since the moment Mom and Dad had gotten this house. The walls were completely covered with posters of movies and bands that we both liked, drawings of superheroes we had created and some of our favorite superheroes, and magazine covers of more bands and actors. Queen was the band we both liked unconditionally, with posters of the band of both sides of the room. David Bowie was there, as well as the Bangles. I had stolen a movie poster for Back to the Future from the theater and I had hung it up proudly over my bed. The TV propped dangerously on our dresser had a large VHS player next to it, and Richie began getting the movie ready. I flopped onto my bed as the TV crackled to life. Richie jumped over the line on the carpet and jumped heavily onto his bed across the room.

The thick black line that ran down the center of the room was the only evidence of Richie and I fighting. When we were eight, Richie and I had gotten into a fight so bad that we had decided we didn't want to share a room anymore. The next logical thing to do was to divide the room in half since the house didn't have an extra room. So I had taken a sharpie and drew the thick line on the carpet going all the way down the room.

Richie hadn't realized that the door was on my side of the room, trapping him on his side with no hope of escape. Richie had had to be carried by Dad in order to leave the room without touching my side. This divided room only lasted a week, but the stain of the black marker had never been cleaned.

"I hope Tina lives this time." Richie said as the movie started.

"I hope Glen learns how to stay awake." I replied. "If a dream monster was coming after my friends, I'd stay awake for them."

"I wouldn't." Richie quipped. "You and Eddie and the others would be doomed."

"Rats." I muttered. "Speaking of which, I think we should bring this movie next time we do a movie day. It'll scare the shit out of Eddie."

Richie chuckled and, in a spot on impression of Eddie's rapid and breathless way of talking, "Guys, we shouldn't be watching this. My mother will have a heart attack if she knows I've seen this movie."

I laughed at that. "He'll complain the whole time but he won't do anything to stop the movie. Same with Stan."

Richie nodded in agreement and our attention was brought back to the movie; Nancy was on screen now, and she was both of our favorite character. When the movie moved on, I turned back to Richie, "I think we should do movie night sometime soon. It'll be fun for Ben and Beverly and we haven't done it since the beginning of school."

"We can tell them tomorrow." Richie said. "Now shut the fuck up; Tina's about to not survive." Indeed, Tina was about to run into Freddy Krueger and-despite our best wishes for her-die.

Maybe it was apart of the edginess from the movie, but the rain pounding on our window sounded an awful lot like someone tapping on the glass.

By the time the movie ended, it was dark outside and the rain had only gotten worse. Richie fell asleep long before me, and I was halfway asleep when the sound of a creaking door echoed loudly around the room.

I straightened in bed, sliding my glasses onto my face and craning my head around the dresser and TV to try and see the bedroom door. I couldn't really see it, but I could tell it was open now. I glanced at Richie, where he was snoring like a train. I was about to take my glasses off and settle back down when the hallway light turned on, shedding bright yellow light into the room.

"Fucking," Richie mumbled, rolling over in his bed to face away from the light. I bit back a sigh and got out of bed, ready to turn the light out and go back to bed.

The hallway was longer than it should be, and when I got to the lightswitch, the stairs going down to the first floor were metal instead of wood. I stared at the red light coming from downstairs.

"No." I mumbled, turning around to go back to the safety of my bed, but the hallway was bathed in red light and instead of the normal hallway I had grown up seeing every day was now a boiler room hallway. My heart pounded in my chest as I struggled to keep calm.

"Just a dream." I told myself. "You watched a scary movie. This is a dream; it's not real."

"Becky," A voice from downstairs hissed in a sick sounding voice. "I'm not real, Becky?"

For a moment I half expected my dream to spit Freddy Krueger at me. But instead the figure that began slinking up the stairs was the clown from the last day of school. Its bright orange hair poofed out from its head and seemed to absorb the red light. It had bright amber eyes and it was watching me hungrily. A malformed smile crossed across the clown's face and it spoke in that sick voice again, "Come downstairs, Becky. I'm not real, after all."

The clown suddenly stormed forward, a bubbling and high pitched laugh exploding from It. I screamed and sprinted down the hall. There was a door where my bedroom was supposed to be and I charged inside, the clown's heavy footsteps sounding right behind me.

I barely comprehended the inside of the room before diving inside and slamming the door, falling into darkness.

"What the fuck?" Richie shouted, bolting upright in his bed. "What happened to you?"

"Richie!" I exclaimed. "I'm awake?"

"Yes?" Richie said, sounding confused.

"But I-" I pointed to the closed door. No light was coming out from under it. "The hallway was...the light-"

"Are you having a stroke?"

I shook myself and hurried into bed, looking at the closed door. Richie didn't have his glasses on, but he put them on and got up to investigate the door. He stared at it for a long time before slowly opening it, ignoring my weak protests. I could tell from my hiding spot that there was nothing out there.

Richie closed the door and came over, sitting on the corner of my bed. "Do you sleepwalk now? And you just had a nightmare or something?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. It was so real and there was this-this clown thing and it was so real, Rich."

"I could tell how scared you were." Richie admitted. "It woke me up and I saw you weren't there and all of a sudden I heard you scream and you ran in and slammed the door." He paused and looked at the TV accusingly. "Do you think it was the movie?"

"I don't know." I muttered, pulling my blanket up to my chin. "I don't want to talk about it though. Can we drop it."

"No." Richie said bluntly. "It's my turn to be the annoying twin."

"You're always the annoying twin." I grumbled.

"You know what I mean." Richie snapped. "Get up; we'll play something until we can't keep our eyes open."

"Why?" I asked, glaring at him as he got up and turned on the lamp. There was a stack of old board games in the closet and Richie wasted no time digging for the best game.

"Because I can still tell that you're freaked the fuck out." Richie explained. "Which means I'm freaked the fuck out. So we're gonna fix this. Now-" He clapped his hands and switched into Toodles the English Butler voice. "Pip pip and cheerio, twin sister! There's a murder afoot." He brandished Clue like a weapon and started setting it up.

I shook my head and sat cross legged on the floor across from him, helping him set up the board and beginning a long game of Clue until we both fell asleep on the floor.


	5. 5: The Losers Club

Mom was very surprised to see Richie and I sleeping on the floor with Clue set up between us. She gently shook us both awake and handed us our glasses as we started to wake. "I just got off the phone with Bill Denbrough?" She said it like a question. "He said to meet them at Beverly's house."

"Tell Bill he can meet my foot in his ass." Richie grumbled.

"Richard." Mom warned.

"Not your best, Richie." I said, standing up and stretching.

By the time we got to Beverly's house, the rest of the group were there. Beverly was pacing below her stairs, looking scared. We had just parked out bikes when Bill turned to Richie. "S-stay out here and wuh-watch out for her d-d-dad."

"Are you shitting me?" Richie asked, throwing me a disbelieving look. Beverly was already heading up the stairs, Bill and Ben at her heels. I shrugged at Richie and went after them, going after Eddie. "What d'I do if her dad comes back?"

"Do what you always do," Stan called over his shoulder as he brought up the rear. "Start talking."

Beverly's apartment was dark, none of the lights were on and every window was covered with thick curtains. I could practically smell the dust floating around the rooms but Beverly walked really fast past the living room and kitchen and down the hall to what must've been her bedroom. I felt a stab of confusion when I saw that her bedroom didn't have a door.

But Beverly turned the corner and didn't bring us to her room. We went further down the hallway and Beverly opened the door at the end of it.

Immediately, our huddled group were washed in a red glow. Beverly glanced at our faces as we all stared open mouthed at the red that covered the bathroom from the floor to the farthest corner of the ceiling. "So you can see the blood too?" She asked softly. "It came from the sink."

Stan was the one to rally us together. He side stepped everyone and sniffed out the cleaning supplies, passing them out to us and assigning us to duties to clean this bathroom. He also found a shower cap, that he placed over his curls and clapped his gloved hands.

"Come on guys." Stan rallied. "The sooner this is clean and taken care of, the sooner we can figure out what happened."

It took the better part of two hours to fully clean the bathroom, and Stan was the leader throughout it. Every now and then someone would go down to tell Richie what was going on. Eddie went down first and didn't come back for about forty minutes. When I finally went down to grab Eddie, I found him and Richie standing on the edge of the ridge, looking down into the river below. They were spitting loogies into the water below and from the stairs, I could hear Eddie talking at a mile a minute and Richie making your mom jokes. I snorted and went back up the stairs, telling them that Eddie had gotten sick and needed some more air.

When the bathroom was clean, we filed out of the apartment and rejoined Richie by the bikes. He had been sitting on the lawn, tearing grass up when we got downstairs.

"It's about time you assholes got back!" Richie shouted the moment he saw us, leaping to his feet. "I've been bored outta my mind for the last two hours! How long does it take to clean a bathroom?"

"Beep beep, Richie." I said dryly. Richie narrowed his eyes at me, his glasses magnifying them. And he remained quiet for a moment before launching into a tirade. Ben nudged Beverly and they snickered about something before picking up their bikes and heading down the road away from Beverly's house. We all did the same, walking our bikes. But Richie rode his bike in circles around the large group, talking a mile a minute as he went.

"How the fuck did the blood even get there?" Richie asked as he circled everyone. "When you say it covered everything, did you really mean everything? And how the fuck did it get there?"

"You already asked that." Stan pointed out.

"I'm just asking again cause it sounds fucking impossible that blood could get in every damn corner of a bathroom!" Richie exclaimed. Beverly halted and glared hard at Richie until he stopped riding in circles and held still.

"The blood, it just, _exploded_." Beverly struggled to explain. Her voice got quiet with fear. "And I kept hearing kids coming from down there. '_We all float down here_.'" She half hissed half whispered and I shuddered hard. Eddie made a choking sound and everyone turned to look at him.

Eddie was turning red. "I saw some things outside the Neibolt house. A clown and a leper...just kept saying that...something floats. I don't know, it's stupid."

"It's not stupid." Ben insisted. "I saw a headless kid in the library archives. Or at least, I think it was a headless kid. I looke away for one second and suddenly it was a clown." He paused and looked around to everyone else. "Did anyone else see the clown? Maybe it's the same one!"

Bill nodded. "I-I saw It. I also suh-saw Georgie." There was a loaded silence as we all digested that. Then realization hit me like a bolt of lightning.

I swung around to face Richie. "I saw the clown too. Twice now!"

Richie gaped for a moment before clapping his hands aggressively. "I fucking knew you were being scared by something!"

"What are you talking about?" Ben asked before looking around the rest of the group.

Stan answered. "They can feel what the other's feeling. Ever since I met them. It's weird."

"As if you two weren't scary enough." Eddie snarked.

Richie barely acknowledged any of them. "You saw the clown that night we watched Nightmare?"

I nodded furiously. "First I saw It on the way home from school. It and a fish man, like the creature from the black lagoon."

Stan cleared his throat quietly. "I saw a painting in my dad's office. It chased me until I slammed the door in its face."

There was a very long pause as everyone snuck glances at each other and the street corners, as if we all expected the clown to appear at any moment. I swallowed hard, remembering how It had chased me up the stairs, and how the Gillman had chased me down the street in the rain. What was going to happen if It actually caught up to me…?

"So," Richie droned, sounding genuinely thoughtful. "Can only virgins see this stuff? Is that why I'm not seeing anything?"

"Hey," Beverly said suddenly. "Isn't that the homeschooled kid's bike?" We followed her gaze and spotted the fallen bike. The bike was bent sort of out of shape, as if something had hit it. I felt a finger of cold go down my spine when I recognized Belch's car.

If Belch had hit him, it was because Bowers was with him. They were all probably hurting the homeschooled kid right now. Without thinking, I pedaled fast to the side of the road and dropped my bike right inside the treeline.

"Beck!" Richie shouted, leading the rest of the group behind him.

To Richie's questioning frown, I straightened. "If I was being harassed by Bowers and his friends, I'd want someone to come help me." And with that, Bill, Ben, and Beverly all got off their bikes and soon the entire group were tromping through the woods, following the suddenly loud shouts of pain.

We ran down the hill and burst through the brush and found ourselves facing the shallow stream. On the other side, it looked like the homeschooled kid had charged onwards, trying to lose the bullies. But Bowers was smearing the boy's face into opened packages of raw meat. From beside me, Beverly picked up a fist sized rock.

Before anyone could do anything, Beverly launched the rock and it met Bowers's head with a sickening thud that knocked Bowers off balance enough for the homeschooled kid to scramble out from underneath him.

"Good hit, Bev," I remarked. The homeschooled kid started towards us and still looked too stunned to climb up the ridge to where we stood. I leaned down and held my hand out and didn't expect the jolt that went through my arm when he actually grabbed my hand.

"Rock war!" Richie roared, a small rock striking his forehead. Eddie let out a furious scream and snatched a rock, launching it in the direction of the rock that hit Richie. Rocks were flying everywhere; I snatched my own rocks up from the shore and started letting them fly at random, trying to hit either of the three bullies.

A rock thrown by Ben hit Belch hard in the chest and that was what it took for Belch to back off. Vic had to be peppered by pebbles coming from Stan and Bill for him to retreat. Bowers took one more hard hit to the head and got knocked onto his ass, right on top of the raw meat.

"Go blow your dad!" Richie screamed. "You mullet wearing asshole!"

"Cuh-come on," Bill said, breathless. He went to help Stan to his feet, as my friend had fallen over at some point during the fight. I went off in the direction that the homeschooled kid went, the rest of the group coming slowly behind me.

When I caught up to the homeschooled kid, he was doubled over and panting slightly, sweat dripping from his brow. He straightened when I approached him and I remembered his name.

Mike Hanlon used to go to school with us. Back in elementary school, he had been one of the few black kids in all of Derry. But then one day in first grade, Mike just stopped going to public school with us and we were just told that he was going to be homeschooled from then on. From then on, Mike could've been found riding his bike around Derry, delivering packages of meat to the butcher and other grocery stores.

I faced Mike, who looked suddenly nervous and he was looking at the rest of the group with an air of unease. He was afraid we'd turn on him, I realized. I took a tiny step forward and pushed my glasses up the bridge of my nose, smiling at him. "Are you okay? Bowers didn't hurt you too bad, did he?"

Mike blinked at me and shook his head. "No. That delivery of meat is no good though." I glanced through the reeds and tall grass to the pile of raw meat and torn red paper in the distance before looking back to Mike.

"Will you get in trouble?" I asked.

Mike shrugged. "I can make up some excuse."

"Why not say that a racist bully tried to make you eat it?"

Despite the circumstances, Mike smiled slightly. The bushes rattled as Eddie led the rest to us, red faced and panting. Bill was right behind him, a red cut on his cheek from a flyaway rock. Beverly and Ben walked beside each other with Stan at their heels, and after a moment Richie finally appeared.

"Are you okay?" Bill asked, not stuttering at all. Mike assured him and everyone else nodded. Despite some bruises and cuts from the flying rocks, everyone was fine. The one with the worst of it was Richie, who was the only one to have taken a rock to the head. Already, a large bump was forming on his forehead, bright red. I refused to focus on him; I didn't want to feel any of that particular pain.

Not wanting to stay near around this area, just in case Bowers or his friends came back, we started to walk farther into the Barrens. Eddie led the group down the hill, heading towards the woods.

"Aren't you all afraid now that Bowers is going to come after you?" Mike asked as a train roared from somewhere in the distance.

"He already hates us," Stan replied.

Richie bounced until he caught up to Mike, falling into pace with him. "Guess that makes you one of us now?" He gave it a second of thought before adding joyfully, "Welcome to the losers club!"


End file.
